IBM has announced software that allows people to hide or anonymize their personal information on the Web, ensuring protection from identity theft and other misuse. Developed by researchers at IBM's laboratory in Zurich, Switzerland, the software - called Identity Mixer - will enable consumers to purchase goods and services on the Internet without disclosing personal information.

As consumers hand over personal details in exchange for downloading music or subscribing to online newsletters, they leave a data trail behind that reveals pieces of information about the size, frequency and source of their online purchases that can be traced back to the user. IBM's Identity Mixer software eliminates the trail by using artificial identity information, known as pseudonyms, to make online transactions anonymous. For example, the software allows people to purchase books or clothing without revealing their credit card number. It can confirm someone's spending limit without sharing their bank balance, or provide proof of age without disclosing their date of birth.

Unlike other identity management systems that transmit parts of a user's true identity, systems built using Identity Mixer software will help protect user privacy by sharing only pseudonyms, so real identity information can never be intercepted or exposed.

Identity Mixer works by allowing a computer user that has the software to get an anonymous digital credential, or voucher, from a trusted third party, like a bank or government agency such as the Department of Motor Vehicles. A bank would provide a credential containing a credit card number and expiration date, and when an online purchase is made, the Identity Mixer software digitally seals the information by transforming the credential so the user can send it to the online merchant. By using sophisticated cryptographic algorithms, the Identity Mixer software acts as the middleman confirming bank authorization for the purchase -- so the real credit card numbers are never revealed to the merchant. The next time a purchase is made, a new encrypted credential would be used.

"When people don't have to disclose their personal information on the Web, the risk of identity theft is dramatically reduced," explains John Clippinger, senior fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "The ability to anonymize transactions using Identity Mixer has the potential to bolster consumer confidence, opening digital floodgates to new forms of Internet commerce."

Identity Mixer brings another dimension to IBM's industry-leading technologies that protect the privacy of consumers and businesses. IBM currently offers software, in use by large governments, healthcare organizations and financial institutions, which provides a way to compare data about their passengers, patients or clients to identify relationships, while never exposing people's sensitive information. The software irreversibly shreds personal artifacts such as names, addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers before the data is shared. The software analyzes the shredded information and alerts the company when a match is found between specific records, identifying only the record file number assigned by the software. It is then up to the organization to decide what amount of detail to share from the identified record. This protects the personal details within other records so they're not needlessly exposed during the comparison process.

Building Privacy into Eclipse Higgins Open Source Security ProjectIBM will contribute its Identity Mixer software to Eclipse Higgins project, an open source effort dedicated to developing software for "user-centric" identity management. The current trend toward a user-centric approach means that individuals can actively and securely control who has access to their online personal information, such as bank account and credit card numbers, or medical and employment records, rather than having institutions solely manage that information as they do today.

Get all these questions and hundreds more like them answered at the 2015 Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, and November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California.

Our upcoming June 9-11, 2015, event in New York City will present a total of 10 simultaneous tracks (the largest conference content in the world) by an all-star faculty, over three days, plus the popular two-day "Cloud Computing Bootcamp" presented by Janakiram MSV, an analyst with the Gigaom Research analyst network where he covers the Cloud Services landscape.

@ThingsExpo content also tripled from a single track last year to three simultaneous (all sold-out) IoT tracks: Consumer IoT, Enterprise IoT, and IoT Developer | WebRTC Convergence.

Our DevOps Summit content also doubled from a single track last June to two simultaneous tracks in November: "Dev" Developer Focus and "Ops" Operations Focus.

Please check back for daily updates as we are working with our distinguished faculty members to finalize new session abstracts. If you have any questions please contact us at events (at) sys-con.com. Last but not least we will announce our keynotes to be delivered by world-class speakers on the hottest topics!

Cloud Expo / @ThingsExpo Silicon Valley 2014 Exhibit Floor Day 3

The largest 'Internet of Things' event in the world has announced "sponsorship opportunities" and "call for papers."

The 1st International Internet of @ThingsExpo was launched this June at the Javits Center in New York City with over 6,000 delegates in attendance. The 2nd International Internet of @ThingsExpo took place November 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California, with an estimated 6,000 plus delegates attending over three days.

@ThingsExpo is co-located with 16th International Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading IoT industry players in the world. In 2015, more than 200 companies will be present on the @ThingsExpo show floor, including global players and the hottest new technology pioneers.

Cloud Expo / @ThingsExpo New York 2014 registration desk at the Javits

Sponsorship and Exhibit Opportunities Are Now AvailableSponsors and exhibitors of Internet of @ThingsExpo will benefit from unmatched branding, profile building and lead generation opportunities through:

Featured on-site presentation and ongoing on-demand webcast exposure to a captive audience of industry decision-makers.

Showcase exhibition during our new extended dedicated expo hours

Breakout Session Priority scheduling for sponsors that have been guaranteed a 35-minute technical session

Online advertising in SYS-CON's i-Technology publications

Capitalize on our comprehensive marketing efforts leading up to the show with print mailings, e-newsletters and extensive online media coverage.

Unprecedented PR Coverage: Editorial coverage on IoT.sys-con.com, Tweets to our 75,000 plus followers, press releases sent on major wire services to over 500 combined analysts and press members who attended Internet of @ThingsExpo - making it the best-covered "Internet of Things" conference in the world

For more information on sponsorship, exhibit, and keynote opportunities contact Carmen Gonzalez by email at events (at) sys-con.com, or by phone 201 802-3021. Book both events for additional savings!

@ThingsExpo 2015 New York (June 9-11 in New York City)@ThingsExpo 2015 Silicon Valley (November 3-5 in Santa Clara, CA)

@ThingsExpo New York 2014 Power Panel on SYS-CON.tv

World's Top 2nd Wave Cloud and IoT Players: 2014 Sponsors and ExhibitorsIn 2014 roughly 12,000 (audited) delegates registered and participated in the world's largest 2nd wave Cloud and 'Internet of Things' event. Conference delegates met with over 150 of the world's leading Cloud and 'Internet of Things' technology pioneers that were among the sponsors and exhibitors, including:

Secure Your VIP Pass to Attend @ThingsExpo New York 2015@ThingsExpo announced a limited time FREE "Expo Plus" registration option. The onsite registration price of $600 will be set to 'free' for delegates who register before the end of this month.

To take advantage of this opportunity, attendees can use the special "coupon code" on the registration page and secure their "@ThingsExpo Plus" registration to attend all keynotes and general sessions, as well as a limited number of technical sessions each day of the show, in addition to full access to the expo floor and the @ThingsExpo hackathons throughout the week.

@ThingsExpo New York 2015 'Call for Papers' Now OpenThe 3rd International Internet of @ThingsExpo, to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, announces that its 'Call for Papers' is now open. The event will feature a world class, all-star faculty with the hottest IoT topics covered in three distinct tracks.

Chris Matthieu has two decades of telecom and web experience. He launched his Teleku cloud communications-as-a-service platform at eComm in 2010, which was acquired by Voxeo. Next he built an open source Node.JS PaaS called Nodester, which was acquired by AppFog. His latest startups include Twelephone. Leveraging HTML5 and WebRTC, Twelephone's BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is to become the next generation telecom company running in the Web browser. Chris is currently co-founder and CTO of Octoblu.

CEO Power Panel in Silicon Valley Examined Agility, Cloud, Big Data, and the 'Internet of Things'

Things are being built upon cloud foundations to transform organizations. This CEO Power Panel at 15th Cloud Expo, moderated by Roger Strukhoff, Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo conference chair, addressed the big issues involving these technologies and, more important, the results they will achieve. Rodney Rogers, chairman and CEO of Virtustream; Brendan O'Brien, co-founder of Aria Systems, Bart Copeland, president and CEO of ActiveState Software; Jim Cowie, chief scientist at Dyn; Dave Wagstaff, VP and chief architect at BSQUARE Corporation; Seth Proctor, CTO of NuoDB, Inc.; and Andris Gailitis, CIO of DEAC, discussed how important public, private, and hybrid cloud are to the enterprise. How does one define Big Data? And how is the IoT tying all this together?

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A strange thing is happening along the way to the Internet of Things, namely far too many devices to work with and manage. It has become clear that we'll need much higher efficiency user experiences that can allow us to more easily and scalably work with the thousands of devices that will soon be in each of our lives. Enter the conversational interface revolution, combining bots we can literally talk with, gesture to, and even direct with our thoughts, with embedded artificial intelligence, whic...

Imagine if you will, a retail floor so densely packed with sensors that they can pick up the movements of insects scurrying across a store aisle. Or a component of a piece of factory equipment so well-instrumented that its digital twin provides resolution down to the micrometer.

In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination – the Blockchain. Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life settle...

Product connectivity goes hand and hand these days with increased use of personal data. New IoT devices are becoming more personalized than ever before.
In his session at 22nd Cloud Expo | DXWorld Expo, Nicolas Fierro, CEO of MIMIR Blockchain Solutions, will discuss how in order to protect your data and privacy, IoT applications need to embrace Blockchain technology for a new level of product security never before seen - or needed.

Leading companies, from the Global Fortune 500 to the smallest companies, are adopting hybrid cloud as the path to business advantage. Hybrid cloud depends on cloud services and on-premises infrastructure working in unison. Successful implementations require new levels of data mobility, enabled by an automated and seamless flow across on-premises and cloud resources. In his general session at 21st Cloud Expo, Greg Tevis, an IBM Storage Software Technical Strategist and Customer Solution Architec...

Nordstrom is transforming the way that they do business and the cloud is the key to enabling speed and hyper personalized customer experiences. In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Ken Schow, VP of Engineering at Nordstrom, discussed some of the key learnings and common pitfalls of large enterprises moving to the cloud. This includes strategies around choosing a cloud provider(s), architecture, and lessons learned. In addition, he covered some of the best practices for structured team migration an...

No hype cycles or predictions of a gazillion things here. IoT is here. You get it. You know your business and have great ideas for a business transformation strategy. What comes next? Time to make it happen. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jay Mason, an Associate Partner of Analytics, IoT & Cybersecurity at M&S Consulting, presented a step-by-step plan to develop your technology implementation strategy. He also discussed the evaluation of communication standards and IoT messaging protocols, data...

Coca-Cola’s Google powered digital signage system lays the groundwork for a more valuable connection between Coke and its customers. Digital signs pair software with high-resolution displays so that a message can be changed instantly based on what the operator wants to communicate or sell. In their Day 3 Keynote at 21st Cloud Expo, Greg Chambers, Global Group Director, Digital Innovation, Coca-Cola, and Vidya Nagarajan, a Senior Product Manager at Google, discussed how from store operations and ...

In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Raju Shreewastava, founder of Big Data Trunk, provided a fun and simple way to introduce Machine Leaning to anyone and everyone. He solved a machine learning problem and demonstrated an easy way to be able to do machine learning without even coding.
Raju Shreewastava is the founder of Big Data Trunk (www.BigDataTrunk.com), a Big Data Training and consulting firm with offices in the United States. He previously led the data warehouse/business intelligence and B...

"IBM is really all in on blockchain. We take a look at sort of the history of blockchain ledger technologies. It started out with bitcoin, Ethereum, and IBM evaluated these particular blockchain technologies and found they were anonymous and permissionless and that many companies were looking for permissioned blockchain," stated René Bostic, Technical VP of the IBM Cloud Unit in North America, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 21st Cloud Expo, held Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Conventi...

When shopping for a new data processing platform for IoT solutions, many development teams want to be able to test-drive options before making a choice. Yet when evaluating an IoT solution, it’s simply not feasible to do so at scale with physical devices. Building a sensor simulator is the next best choice; however, generating a realistic simulation at very high TPS with ease of configurability is a formidable challenge. When dealing with multiple application or transport protocols, you would be...

Smart cities have the potential to change our lives at so many levels for citizens: less pollution, reduced parking obstacles, better health, education and more energy savings. Real-time data streaming and the Internet of Things (IoT) possess the power to turn this vision into a reality. However, most organizations today are building their data infrastructure to focus solely on addressing immediate business needs vs. a platform capable of quickly adapting emerging technologies to address future ...

We are given a desktop platform with Java 8 or Java 9 installed and seek to find a way to deploy high-performance Java applications that use Java 3D and/or Jogl without having to run an installer. We are subject to the constraint that the applications be signed and deployed so that they can be run in a trusted environment (i.e., outside of the sandbox). Further, we seek to do this in a way that does not depend on bundling a JRE with our applications, as this makes downloads and installations rat...

Widespread fragmentation is stalling the growth of the IIoT and making it difficult for partners to work together. The number of software platforms, apps, hardware and connectivity standards is creating paralysis among businesses that are afraid of being locked into a solution.
EdgeX Foundry is unifying the community around a common IoT edge framework and an ecosystem of interoperable components.

DX World EXPO, LLC, a Lighthouse Point, Florida-based startup trade show producer and the creator of "DXWorldEXPO® - Digital Transformation Conference & Expo" has announced its executive management team. The team is headed by Levent Selamoglu, who has been named CEO. "Now is the time for a truly global DX event, to bring together the leading minds from the technology world in a conversation about Digital Transformation," he said in making the announcement.

In this strange new world where more and more power is drawn from business technology, companies are effectively straddling two paths on the road to innovation and transformation into digital enterprises. The first path is the heritage trail – with “legacy” technology forming the background. Here, extant technologies are transformed by core IT teams to provide more API-driven approaches. Legacy systems can restrict companies that are transitioning into digital enterprises. To truly become a lead...

Digital Transformation (DX) is not a "one-size-fits all" strategy. Each organization needs to develop its own unique, long-term DX plan. It must do so by realizing that we now live in a data-driven age, and that technologies such as Cloud Computing, Big Data, the IoT, Cognitive Computing, and Blockchain are only tools. In her general session at 21st Cloud Expo, Rebecca Wanta explained how the strategy must focus on DX and include a commitment from top management to create great IT jobs, monitor ...

"Cloud Academy is an enterprise training platform for the cloud, specifically public clouds. We offer guided learning experiences on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and all the surrounding methodologies and technologies that you need to know and your teams need to know in order to leverage the full benefits of the cloud," explained Alex Brower, VP of Marketing at Cloud Academy, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 21st Cloud Expo, held Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clar...

The IoT Will Grow: In what might be the most obvious prediction of the decade, the IoT will continue to expand next year, with more and more devices coming online every single day. What isn’t so obvious about this prediction: where that growth will occur. The retail, healthcare, and industrial/supply chain industries will likely see the greatest growth. Forrester Research has predicted the IoT will become “the backbone” of customer value as it continues to grow. It is no surprise that retail is ...

Blockchain. A day doesn’t seem to go by without seeing articles and discussions about the technology. According to PwC executive Seamus Cushley, approximately $1.4B has been invested in blockchain just last year. In Gartner’s recent hype cycle for emerging technologies, blockchain is approaching the peak. It is considered by Gartner as one of the ‘Key platform-enabling technologies to track.’ While there is a lot of ‘hype vs reality’ discussions going on, there is no arguing that blockchain is being taken very seriously across industries and cannot be ignored.

Blockchain is a shared, secure record of exchange that establishes trust, accountability and transparency across business networks. Supported by the Linux Foundation's open source, open-standards based Hyperledger Project, Blockchain has the potential to improve regulatory compliance, reduce cost as well as advance trade. Are you curious about how Blockchain is built for business? In her session at 21st Cloud Expo, René Bostic, Technical VP of the IBM Cloud Unit in North America, discussed the basics of Blockchain, previewed the Blockchain Reference Architecture, and introduced the mechanics o...

A strange thing is happening along the way to the Internet of Things, namely far too many devices to work with and manage. It has become clear that we'll need much higher efficiency user experiences that can allow us to more easily and scalably work with the thousands of devices that will soon be in each of our lives. Enter the conversational interface revolution, combining bots we can literally talk with, gesture to, and even direct with our thoughts, with embedded artificial intelligence, which can process our conversational commands and orchestrate the outcomes we request across our persona...

Imagine if you will, a retail floor so densely packed with sensors that they can pick up the movements of insects scurrying across a store aisle. Or a component of a piece of factory equipment so well-instrumented that its digital twin provides resolution down to the micrometer.

Bitcoins are a digital cryptocurrency and have been around since 2009. As a substitute for legal tender, they are becoming the rage for investors and others but because there is no government agency auditing or performing regulatory oversights, you wonder if it is the perfect breeding ground for electronic nano crime. Since the introduction of the Bitcoin, some competitors have emerged and the whole segment of cryptocurrencies are defined as Altcoins. Altcoins include Dogecoin, Ethereum Feathercoin, Litecoin, Novacoin, Peercoin, and Zetacoin. Some of these cryptocurrencies are considered impro...

It took Magellan's crew three years sailing ships to circumnavigate the earth. Today, at hypersonic speeds of 7,680 MPH, it takes just over three hours to circumnavigate the earth. Data on the Internet, however, travels at 670 million MPH, which means it only takes milliseconds to circumnavigate the earth. In this age of digital businesses and digital interactions, companies must digitally transform to work effectively in a world where mass information moves at these unimaginable speeds.

Coca-Cola’s Google powered digital signage system lays the groundwork for a more valuable connection between Coke and its customers. Digital signs pair software with high-resolution displays so that a message can be changed instantly based on what the operator wants to communicate or sell. In their Day 3 Keynote at 21st Cloud Expo, Greg Chambers, Global Group Director, Digital Innovation, Coca-Cola, and Vidya Nagarajan, a Senior Product Manager at Google, discussed how from store operations and optimization to employee training and insights, all ultimately create the best customer experience b...

"IBM is really all in on blockchain. We take a look at sort of the history of blockchain ledger technologies. It started out with bitcoin, Ethereum, and IBM evaluated these particular blockchain technologies and found they were anonymous and permissionless and that many companies were looking for permissioned blockchain," stated René Bostic, Technical VP of the IBM Cloud Unit in North America, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 21st Cloud Expo, held Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

When shopping for a new data processing platform for IoT solutions, many development teams want to be able to test-drive options before making a choice. Yet when evaluating an IoT solution, it’s simply not feasible to do so at scale with physical devices. Building a sensor simulator is the next best choice; however, generating a realistic simulation at very high TPS with ease of configurability is a formidable challenge. When dealing with multiple application or transport protocols, you would be looking at some significant engineering investment.
On-demand, serverless computing enables deve...

From manual human effort the world is slowly paving its way to a new space where most process are getting replaced with tools and systems to improve efficiency and bring down operational costs. Automation is the next big thing and low code platforms are fueling it in a significant way.
The Automation era is here. We are in the fast pace of replacing manual human efforts with machines and processes. In the world of Information Technology too, we are linking disparate systems, softwares and tools to make things self sustaining. This is called Automation.It has been helping companies overcome t...

By 2020, 90 percent of all new cars will have some sort of built-in connectivity platform, and by 2022, there will be 1.8 billion automotive M2M connections. As cars join the Internet of Things, cars will stop being independent entities and will become part of a larger, connected ecosystem. Cars as part of the IoT isn’t just a look into the future – it’s already happening.
“Everything that moves will become autonomic, it’s just a matter of time,” says Vishnu Andhare, Consulting Manager at ISG. Andhare notes that all of the big automotive players are already moving towards a future of shared m...

Decentralization of everything, the great new idea of which the web can’t stop babbling, might still seem a bit utopian if you inspect it closely.
Yes, blockchains are likely to reshape our economy, or a huge part of it, and benefit considerably those who are currently unbanked.
They might also facilitate the creation of rating/reputation systems that are not controlled by any single entity and thus allow people (say Uber drivers who’d like to work for Lyft) to switch employers without having to establish their credibility anew.
They might give users complete control over their assets; prot...

There is a fundamental flaw in how many people think about digital transformation. First, as we’ve written about extensively at Intellyx, people tend to think about it as a finite corporate project, rather than as a process of continual transformation. There is a deeper flaw in thinking, however, that leads to this type of project mentality. Enterprise leaders commonly think of transformation as something done at a corporate level — something the organization does to itself. But that mindset creates a separation between the act of transformation at an organizational level and the transformatio...

These days, APIs have become an integral part of the digital transformation journey for all enterprises. Every digital innovation story is connected to APIs . But have you ever pondered over to know what are the source of these APIs? Let me explain - APIs sources can be varied, internal or external, solving different purposes, but mostly categorized into the following two categories. Data lakes is a term used to represent disconnected but relevant data that are used by various business units within an enterprise. APIs are created as the easy access points for these siloed data lakes.

We are given a desktop platform with Java 8 or Java 9 installed and seek to find a way to deploy high-performance Java applications that use Java 3D and/or Jogl without having to run an installer. We are subject to the constraint that the applications be signed and deployed so that they can be run in a trusted environment (i.e., outside of the sandbox). Further, we seek to do this in a way that does not depend on bundling a JRE with our applications, as this makes downloads and installations rather long.

There is a story emerging about the role the Internet of Things (IoT) has played in disaster preparedness. Indeed this technology has matured to the point that it is making a real and measurable impact in helping communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disaster.

AI technology is ever evolving and some believe it could be the next digital frontier. Today, the artificial intelligence revolution seems to be transforming every business in just about every industry from auto to banking to retail and beyond. The gaming industry is no exception.

Bert Loomis was a visionary. This general session will highlight how Bert Loomis and people like him inspire us to build great things with small inventions. In their general session at 19th Cloud Expo, Harold Hannon, Architect at IBM Bluemix, and Michael O'Neill, Strategic Business Development at Nvidia, discussed the accelerating pace of AI development and how IBM Cloud and NVIDIA are partnering to bring AI capabilities to "every day," on-demand. They also reviewed two "free infrastructure" programs available to startups and innovators.

There is a war a-brewin’, but this war will be fought with wits and not brute strength. Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that “the nation that leads in AI (Artificial Intelligence) will be the ruler of the world,” the press and analysts have created hysteria regarding the ramifications of artificial intelligence on everything from public education to unemployment to healthcare to Skynet.
Note: artificial intelligence (AI) endows applications with the ability to automatically learn and adapt from experience via interacting with the surroundings / environment. See the b...

A strong declaration from a historically antagonist foe should put chills in the hearts of Americans preparing themselves for the world ahead: Russian President Vladimir Putin says the nation that leads in AI will be the ruler of the world [1]” … The ruler of the world!
From the article (with some modification to avoid political landmines), we get the following:
“The development of artificial intelligence has increasingly become a national security concern in recent years. It is China and the US (not Russia), which are seen as the two frontrunners, with China recently announcing its ambi...

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.